48. Day 43 – Inverness to Orchil Castle near Perth in Scotland

Thursday 23 November 2006

Oh what luxury!  We got up late, had a beautifully cooked full Scottish breakfast, and headed off again – once again in the rain – at 10.20 am.

It was 42° Fahrenheit outside as we headed south towards Orchil Castle.

We tracked down the A9 towards the mountains and were surrounded by mist and snow.  We passed through the Cairngorms National Park near Aviemore and the ruins of Ruthven Barracks.  The scenery was beautiful with horses beside the road and patches of scattered snow.

There were lots of wet areas and the heather changed colour as we passed the Dalwhinnie Distillery and the Dalwhinnie Hills.

We drove across the Dalnaspidal Pass, Drumochter Summit through Blair Atholl Pass, across the River Gary and into Perth. 

We decided that we were going to go by train the next day to London, so somehow we managed to find our way to the railway station and park in the very restricted parking area.  Dick walked in and inquired about the prices of tickets from Glen Eagles Station to London.  The Scottish ticket seller first gave Dick the typical tourist class price so Dick asked, “What would the price be of a first class ticket?”  The seller said “Sir, you wouldn’t be able to afford it, so I’m not going to tell you” and he didn’t so we bought the tourist class tickets!

We left Perth and stopped beside the incredibly busy A9 for a quick lunch and Pip cleaned out the fridge.  Dick realised that this was a stupid place to stop as we were only a metre off the A9 with huge trucks barrelling past at 60 miles per hour.  One slight error and we would have been dead.

We keyed Orchil Castle into the GPS and ended up driving along their 4WD back road.  We should have realised that the notice said Orchil Castle private road. If we had gone a little bit further we would have come in on the main bitumen road.   Jo Ann Munro welcomed us as the rain continued to fall.

Pip packed up and cleaned out the Earthroamer while Dick worked on the TV aerial and found that the coupling unit to put voltage to the amplifier had never been connected.  No wonder the normal TV aerial had not worked correctly. (Earthroamer please note!)

We stayed the night with Jo Ann and Arabella in their castle home.  In the morning, can you believe it, it was sunny and fine!

With the Earthroamer put to bed in the big shed beside Boyd’s Jetranger we were driven to Glen Eagles Railway Station and we caught the train back to London. We stayed the night with Tony and Elaine Salmon before we flew home.

Of the 40,075 km around the world, we have now covered 39% of the distance.

222kms Today            15,628kms Total since Anchorage, Alaska

2,782kms Total UK (Stage 3)

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